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July 13, 2006
How to evangelize word of mouth marketing internally
From the WOMMA blog, Kira Wampler, senior marketing manager for Intuit, shares her tips on how she garnered support for word of mouth marketing programs internally:
Tip #1. Identify mavens, connectors and sales people
Network like crazy. Invite to lunch anyone who has even remotely had anything to do with WOM.
Kira identified a crew she called Intuit WOMmers who ended up being a sort of internal support group for the company's WOM initiatives.
Tip #2. Give them a home
Initial meetings were one-to-one, but of course, WOM is about
many-to-many conversations. If your goal is to rapidly expand and gain
traction for WOM throughout the company, the word must spread.
Kira organized optional monthly sessions, a WOM wiki, and a WOM distribution list.
Tip #3. Offer relevant and desirable information
People need information in order to spread the word. After learning
that the hottest internal WOM topics were measurement, internal
support, and best practices, Kira pre-populated a wiki on those topics.
She also built a special "evangelist presentation" and asked WOMmers if they'd be interested in seeing the presentation first so they could provide feedback and feel engaged.
Tip #4. Evangelize like crazy
While Kira started with highly engaged groups, she also wanted to
influence the larger Intuit population. She created another
presentation that focused on key trends in society that are making WOM
critical, plus a series of best practices examples which she customized
depending on the audience.
Tip #5. Dive in and participate
Be willing and available to serve as a consultant or as part of the
conversation between other teams and within other teams. She helps
teams see "low-hanging fruit" that they can begin testing without
investing large amounts of money and time.
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Hi Ben & Jackie,
Thanks for sharing this with your audience. We have been learning a lot internally (and externally) about how to effectively drive word of mouth efforts for larger companies. We've benefited greatly from our WOMMA membership and, via Scott Wilder, from getting to know you both.
Other sources I'd recommend for folks who are interested - check out Walter's Carl blog (http://wom-study.blogspot.com/) and, of course, his research. I've also read a lot of research by Dina Mayzlin from Yale University, who focuses heavily on measuring WoM's impact on sales. Forrester's Charlene Li has a good blog, albeit a lighlty written one these days, and Forrester has some excellent reports on consumer generated media, Web 2.0, and WoM tools.
Kira
